She wasn't drinking, it was the gin-soaked raisins

Probation violation was from alcohol in the raisins, according to Easton woman.

August 23, 2010|By Matt Assad, OF THE MORNING CALL

An Easton woman says she flunked a court-ordered urine test not because she was drinking but because she was eating gin-soaked raisins to ease her arthritis pain.

Judy Russo, 59, of Easton filed a motion Monday in Northampton County Court to have her incarceration changed back to probation because she argues she did not violate her probation by drinking, but instead ate gin-soaked raisins to treat the arthritis that has wracked her body.

Russo pleaded no contest to a stalking charge in February and was given three years' probation by Judge Leonard Zito on the condition that she remain alcohol- and drug-free. She was returned to prison by Zito earlier this month after her drug test showed the presence of alcohol.

"Ms. Russo suffers from migrating arthritis that she is unable to treat with conventional medicine," wrote her attorney, Jason Jenkins. "The defendant acknowledges that she had consumed gin-soaked raisins."

Jenkins said Russo used the home remedy because she had heard it from longtime radio personality, Paul Harvey, who died in February. He says Russo's arthritis and lung cancer cannot be adequately treated in prison.